


Moonlight (Sunshine)

by estike



Category: Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Mozart/Baguian & Guirao, Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Takarazuka Revue
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:33:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24317380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estike/pseuds/estike
Summary: But, does the moon want to kill the sun?
Relationships: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart & Antonio Salieri
Kudos: 8





	Moonlight (Sunshine)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Takarazuka adaptation of the musical - which means I may be inconsistent with the original.

The moon can only avoid heartbreak if it does not appear in the same sky as the sun, spending eternity apart. The night sky is his stage, against which he shines, stealing the light. 

Breathing silver against the stars, he shall be praised, for human knows no better at nighttime. But come the lazy morning when he reflects on the azure behind the clouds and suddenly he is nothing but pale compared to the sun. 

Humiliated each morning, how is the moon still back on the sky almost every night? 

Perhaps the moon never believed he was all alone on the sky. Perhaps the moon never believed that the throne, woven of light and the silver crown ever belonged to him. 

That is why he may liken himself to the moon, yet, they will never be the same. 

☾

Of course, one can say it was his fault to begin with. That he accepted the invitation, feigning reluctancy, and arrived at the rehearsal for The Abduction from the Seraglio with the score in hand. When people meet perfection they often resist it with such a passionate urge that they’d do anything to find fault in it. Nothing short of desperate.

Salieri was no different. 

From the moment someone showed him the score he had this childish urge to be the first one who exposed Mozart for what he was. Nothing more than any of them. His heart would perhaps even break if he had to stand there and say nothing but praise. We tell ourselves so many lies that then circle back into themselves just to shield ourselves from reality. 

He could praise another composer for their skill, so long as their talent did not intimidate him, put him at peril, dwarfen him, made him nul. 

Only when Rosenberg came up with his childish little complaints did he realize how transparent he must have sounded to anyone who was there to listen. Pathetic, Salieri thought, then turned the words towards himself following the very same notion. Absolutely disgraceful. 

He still went to the rehearsal - to prove Mozart, himself, and the world wrong. Perfection did not exist. And if it did, it surely would not take the form of a pleasure-chasing young brat with the smile of a thousand suns and the attitude of a thousand full eclipses. 

Salieri stood at the back of the rehearsal room, finding a comfortable place in the shadows. The overture began. 

Then, he lost time. 

Listening felt like the blood in his veins turned into liquid pleasure. Then froze. Creeping up unnoticed, the pleasure-turned-icicles then split his veins open; filled up his heart just to suffocate him, to weigh him down, to ruin him. 

The truth was as simple as that. Reality, too. 

Perfection hurt more than any flaws. Perfection existed to be juxtaposed against his mundane simplicity. Perfection could not be fought but it beckoned you stronger than anything, inviting you to try. To hate. 

Did the moon ever fantasize about killing the sun? 

Truly, it was a curse to understand music, for he’d know the exact ways he was conquered in - and yet unable to reproduce any of it. To overcome. 

Before Mozart, he believed that hard work, determination, and ambition would take a man anywhere he wished to reach, no matter how far.

After Mozart, he knew that unless a man was born bearing the gifts of the Lord, no hard work, determination, and ambition could make anyone shine brighter than the sun itself. 

He lowered the score he held in his hand and surrendered himself to time and the music resounding in his ears instead. If Salieri closed his eyes, he had no recollection of it.

The world was suddenly a better place. And simultaneously much, much worse. 

Once the rehearsal was over - and so was his life - Mozart dashed out of the room with the same vigour he always carried himself with. Very inappropriate, very excessive, thoroughly headache-inducing. A moment later his head popped into the rehearsal room again.

Salieri was still standing there as if his feet were attached to the ground and he turned into a statue made of stone. Stillness felt protective. Stagnant. 

“I’m glad!” Mozart exclaimed. Vaguely at him. 

“Pardon?” 

“Glad you came.” He gestured with his hands. “You have a very nice presence. Can weigh down on a room a little, but I like it. It’s… unique.” 

Before Salieri could react with anything more than a frown he was out of the door again. Only to come back for a third time, clinging to the doorframe.

“Oh right, what did you think?” 

Unfortunately, it was perfect. 

He looked around but most of the people scattered away already, leaving no ear-witnesses. If he wanted to be disgraceful, this was the time. 

Salieri knew that he had two choices. Accept that he was never meant to be the sun and praise its nurturing light, or reject the idea of perfection and cavil at the most unnecessary of details to feel in control again. A grin wavered on Mozart’s lips as he waited for an answer. He was perhaps almost even truly interested. 

Be it praise or a lie, he would feel like choking on both. 

Instead, he avoided the question altogether. Much more pathetic than those who bow their head before greatness without putting up a fight - and more pathetic than those too, who would split a hair, just to be right. 

“Do not let your orchestra wait for you the next time.” 

Mozart nodded like people do when information goes in through one of their ears and leaves through the other immediately after. 

“And… do not stick your head through the door one more time.” 

☾

He would sometimes sink into his pillow face first in the morning until his breathing would become shallow, then emerge from bed as if nothing had happened. That which nobody had seen might as well not be real. 

We only ever know the near side of the moon. What happens on the other side is a mystery that nobody ever wanted to solve. 

But, does the moon want to kill the sun? 

And does the sun look down on the moon with contempt, in return? 

☾

At times he would appear a few minutes after the rehearsal started. Enter in silence, then leave before the end - as if there was anywhere to hide. 

Perfection is something hard to look away from and so hard to bear at the same time. Perfection composes flower poems in one’s soul and wrenches their heart in the pain of powerlessness. 

How could he defeat him? Salieri would always think, standing at the back, enveloped in the last shadows of the room. How could he crush the dazzling sunlight in his palm? 

Then at other times, he would come back to the empty rehearsal room, fingering melodies on the piano that were destined to a slow suicide the moment they were born under his fingertips. Salieri felt like a child, as he listened to these distant sounds. Not a child that was paraded through Europe at an age so young that many of us could even hardly write. 

Just a child. Stealing forbidden notes in an empty music room, while the rain showers away outside, shooting into the bleak nothingness. Falling from the sky straight to the mud. 

Now too, Salieri closed his eyes and wished he was ignorant. 

Ignorance is the greatest enabler of it all. Just look at Rosenberg: barely any self-awareness. But was he happy? In that blissful state of never fully knowing he was below average. 

The melody he left off somewhere to hang in the air forever suddenly began to carry on. It sounded like liquid pleasure. Filling up his veins. 

Salieri opened his eyes and he did not have to turn in order to find out who picked up where he trailed off earlier. Scruffy red jacket. Lean, agile fingers.

Should he just kill him? 

“Let’s play,” Mozart urged him. “I liked where that was going. Join me?” 

He only turned towards him now. Mozart wasn’t even sitting down, merely leaning over. He removed his fingers from the piano for a second and made himself comfortable on the small space left free next to Salieri. 

“No,” Salieri answered, abruptly. 

The annoying devil bared his teeth and nodded. 

“I have offended you,” he made the observation, surprisingly good at reading the atmosphere. “I thought it was brilliant but then you stopped and hmm… Maybe I wanted to encourage you? Maybe I wanted to be part of your music?”

“No,” Salieri said again; a cold, sharp, icy edge of a knife. 

Of course, Mozart could take anything and transform it into something divine under the fluttering of his fingers, mindlessly following the gift the Lord had given him. He could give you the taste of the greatness that lies beyond the whiff of the clouds and fool you into believing that heights can be achieved on a whim. But was that not also the height of humiliation? Was he not laughing into his face right now? 

“No?” Mozart asked with that feigned innocence that could alone drive him insane. 

“One does not tamper with the things they supposedly like.”

Mozart laughed until tears welled up in his eyes and he had to squeeze them with his thumb, breathless.

He felt like he could not look - not on his face, not anywhere in the world. 

“But Monsieur Salieri, we only ever tamper with the things we like! I liked your melody so much, I wanted to write a love song for it. Why wouldn’t, in fact, we tamper with the things that reached out to us and squeezed at our hearts? For example… You liked Constanze and I together so much, you wanted to make us get married as soon as possible. Isn’t it the same thing?” 

His heart stopped for a moment, then began to beat in his throat. He would not call it nerves, that would not be likely. No remorse either. Remorse was not his kind. 

Salieri did what served him - although he did not anticipate to be caught in the act. 

Did Mozart know? Was he playing around as always, stabbing in the dark, poking fun at everything? 

“A little bird told me,” Mozart continued when no answer came. “That they overheard you say so. You made sure we could be together as soon as possible. I say, interesting approach - but then, giving us your blessings like ordinary people would isn’t something that suits you, yes? So, you must understand the sentiment.”

Salieri bit down on his tongue until he feared he’d bite it off any moment. Was he truly that naive? And was he more afraid of being caught, or being accused of truly caring? 

Mozart pointed at the keys.

“Let’s play. You lead.” 

And he led. 

Just like the sun, all would grow under his nurturing light. His melodies would flourish but not only - they flourished along with his growing respect, and raging hatred. A heart could only be so full and only be so thorny. The world has not seen more common and yet more curious thing when two contrary feelings start blooming in one’s heart, never quite strong enough to take over the other. Never quite weak enough to die. 

Time disappeared again. His animosity did not. 

The music ended with two little fingers meeting in the same note, then the rehearsal room fell quiet. Mozart smiled at him and only then did he realize why - he was merely returning a smile. Salieri wiped off all expression from his face and stood up. 

His finger stung, where they touched one another. 

“That was nice.” Mozart’s voice echoed in the room loudly. “We should do that again soon.”

“I don’t think so.” 

He pulled himself together and aimed for the door.

“Monsieur Salieri?” Mozart called after him, in a playfully high tone. 

He knew he should not, yet he turned back. “What.”

“You know, your smile really is beautiful.” 

Unspeakable reaction. He fell for it again. 

☾

At night, before falling asleep he would recall a knife in his mind. Violent ends, just as far from Mozart as close they were to himself. Eagerly waiting to happen. For a moment of disquiet. A moment of weakness.

The knife, glowing in the dark would then dissolve into thin air and turn into invisible notes, melodies climbing on top of each other. Entangled, as limbs would be, then ending as one. At the end of two fingertips. 

The sun shines down on all of us mere humans and nurtures wrong and right into flourish with its gentle light. 

Nothing can make a heart behave, as long as the warmth inside is fed by those naughty sunrays. 

The moon just steals the light and proud, reigns through the night. 

But that is where he was different from it all. 

He was a simple man. When he found something out of place, he’d take care of it. He’d get rid of the pieces that discomposed the order of the room. 

There was no other thing left to do but to get rid of the pieces that caused disorder in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think zuka Salieri likes to be pushed, so I tried not to push him too far away from where he'd be in the musical.  
> Might as well throw him off a cliff in a next part, though.


End file.
